Mazda Releases Details on 2019 MX-5

Tyler H said:

Professor_Brap said:

Plan on seeing failing DMF in the future! I know the cars that I have owned with them they dont seem to last long before making noise. 

Just did the clutch in my 911 with 120k miles and reused the DMF.  No noise.  My previous 330i had 160k on the DMF.  It did make a little noise if you lugged the engine, but still worked fine.  100k on a MINI with a DMF and it was fine too.  

What are you driving that is failing early?

 

I have had tons of DMF issues out of  the MINI I had at 95K and all 3 MK4 TDi have the issue. I do a ton of them in Dodge trucks and 996s for chattering. 

Professor_Brap said:

Tyler H said:

Professor_Brap said:

Plan on seeing failing DMF in the future! I know the cars that I have owned with them they dont seem to last long before making noise. 

Just did the clutch in my 911 with 120k miles and reused the DMF.  No noise.  My previous 330i had 160k on the DMF.  It did make a little noise if you lugged the engine, but still worked fine.  100k on a MINI with a DMF and it was fine too.  

What are you driving that is failing early?

 

I have had tons of DMF issues out of  the MINI I had at 95K and all 3 MK4 TDi have the issue. I do a ton of them in Dodge trucks and 996s for chattering. 

Sounds like another all FA20s blow up, etc etc.

z31maniac said:

Professor_Brap said:

Tyler H said:

Professor_Brap said:

Plan on seeing failing DMF in the future! I know the cars that I have owned with them they dont seem to last long before making noise. 

Just did the clutch in my 911 with 120k miles and reused the DMF.  No noise.  My previous 330i had 160k on the DMF.  It did make a little noise if you lugged the engine, but still worked fine.  100k on a MINI with a DMF and it was fine too.  

What are you driving that is failing early?

 

I have had tons of DMF issues out of  the MINI I had at 95K and all 3 MK4 TDi have the issue. I do a ton of them in Dodge trucks and 996s for chattering. 

Sounds like another all FA20s blow up, etc etc.

I dont know what to say.... I do a g56 clutch a month for customers with DMF rattle, and every TDi I have had has had a failing DMF, mind you they all have had 90K plus on them so they wernt fresh, but the DMF from what I have seen usually fails before the clutch does. 

every 1.8t i've ever worked on has a flywheel rattle.  we had 2 VR6 customer cars (one O2J, one O2M, both mk4s) and both had flywheel failures.  Thankfully, there are plenty of SMF retrofit kits and they aren't too expensive in VW land.

BoxheadTim said:

Interesting that they did change the exhaust header as well. That might back up the some people suggesting that it was/is a bottleneck on the ND1.

Makes me wonder if the new exhaust including header can be retrofitted. 

Yes, the original 2.0 header was a problem - I've been told by some Mazda insiders that it's because of the packaging. What they managed to figure out for 2019 will be interesting to see.

New exhaust ports and quite different intake ports on the new engine. Simply bolting the new exhaust manifold on probably won't get you the gains. I'm not sure the Edelbrock supercharger will fit anymore. Actually, the larger throttle body will also probably be a problem there. I think the BBR turbos will be able to adapt fairly easily, the Edelbrock will require new castings.

Bravo on Mazda for such a thorough update! I just KNEW there was more to this little 2.0 engine, with the original peak power coming in around what, 5500 rpm, yet revving to 6800? Something just didn't add up.

As for clutch chatter, what is the actual issue, just noise? Have a twin disc clutch in the Supra, any time your foot is pushing the pedal, it rattles, just like every twin disc setup I've ever heard in a Supra. Makes me wonder though, I've never noticed that sound in Vettes or Vipers, but I can't recall if any of those came factory with twin discs or not.

I always find such improvements a bit befuddling. I mean, like "... each piston has been reduced 27g in mass... connecting rods are 41g lighter..." Given the level of automotive engine development and CAD machining, one would assume that engine parts weigh what they do for very good reason. Yet, for the next model year, they somehow discover that they can shave weight off these parts.

Why didn't they just do this the first time and have a kick-butt engine right out of the gate? I'm sure it's cheaper to use pedestrian parts, keeping such "improvements" in their back pocket only if needed. They're probably testing whether buyers are content with the existing power and if they complain, only then they'll up their game.  Seems like a reason to never buy the first generation of anything. I get it that the automobile industry is about making a profit; it's just a little disappointing how often they guess wrong and only fix things after many settled for less.

Just getting by with the bare minimum reminds me of this:

In reply to kb58 :

It could be related to time for durability testing.  In the couple of years since the engine was first released, they've had that much more time to test the lighter parts and higher power levels on lab engines and confirm that they meet the durability goals, etc. 

Or maybe it takes time and money to continue development on a unique engine for a low volume, inexpensive car with a one-off platform so you can’t do everything at once. 

And maybe they don't want to invest everything all upfront until they know if the car is a dud or not, especially with a fickle market.

Very similar changes were made to the 1.5 that’s available overseas a couple of years ago. 

kb58 said:

Seems like a reason to never buy the first generation of anything.

Or the second, because the third will be better than the second.  Or the third, because the fourth will be better still. Or the fourth, because the fifth will be even better yet.  Or the fifth, because...

In reply to kb58 :

"Bare Minumium" and "production automobile" can't go in the same sentence. 

Driven5 said:

kb58 said:

Seems like a reason to never buy the first generation of anything.

Or the second, because the third will be better than the second.  Or the third, because the fourth will be better still. Or the fourth, because the fifth will be even better yet.  Or the fifth, because...

Everyone knows you can't wait until the 6th!  Thats when it gets fat and looses the manual transmission option.

logdog said:

Driven5 said:

kb58 said:

Seems like a reason to never buy the first generation of anything.

Or the second, because the third will be better than the second.  Or the third, because the fourth will be better still. Or the fourth, because the fifth will be even better yet.  Or the fifth, because...

Everyone knows you can't wait until the 6th!  Thats when it gets fat and looses the manual transmission option.

That may be true.  But if you're just willing to just wait for the 8th, it'll 'get back to it's roots' like nothing since the 4th, which would make it the perfect one to buy right up until the 9th comes along...So maybe wait just a little longer until the 10th.

You guys are all reminding me of why I stopped buying video games.

In the car world though, I find that there are truly standout cars. Then there are cars that are discontinued. Would anyone say that the C3 Corvette was a better car than the C2 that preceded it? What about the MR2? Many think that the SW20 was the pinnacle there. New NSX vs old? Sure, there are cars that are all about continuous improvement, take the 911 for example.

In the end? Buy what strikes your fancy. Life's too short to drive a boring car for any longer than you have to. Good to keep a boring car around, if you can, so your interesting one doesn't let you down. Years of Supra ownership has taught me that haha.

Driven5 said:

kb58 said:

Seems like a reason to never buy the first generation of anything.

Or the second, because the third will be better than the second.  Or the third, because the fourth will be better still. Or the fourth, because the fifth will be even better yet.  Or the fifth, because...

Usually you want the first, because while there may be some enhancements in later series, they also tend to get focus-grouped to death.

Like the RX-7.  First series had the best chassis and the thickest rear sway bar and they drove like a dream.  Second series, they moved the shifter from a natural-feeling position to something 6" further back and super stubby, like a Miata except with crappy synchros and wide ratios.  Then in the third series, they added a bunch of weight and ruined the rear suspension further by adding in a bunch of roll understeer.

Knurled. said:

Driven5 said:

kb58 said:

Seems like a reason to never buy the first generation of anything.

Or the second, because the third will be better than the second.  Or the third, because the fourth will be better still. Or the fourth, because the fifth will be even better yet.  Or the fifth, because...

Usually you want the first, because while there may be some enhancements in later series, they also tend to get focus-grouped to death.

 

Like the RX-7.  First series had the best chassis and the thickest rear sway bar and they drove like a dream.  Second series, they moved the shifter from a natural-feeling position to something 6" further back and super stubby, like a Miata except with crappy synchros and wide ratios.  Then in the third series, they added a bunch of weight and ruined the rear suspension further by adding in a bunch of roll understeer.

B b b b but....Aluminum pedals and foam door panels! !

Knurled. said:

Usually you want the first, because while there may be some enhancements in later series, they also tend to get focus-grouped to death.

Outside of a collectors perspective, I can't say that I agree.  For every example where the next iteration has lost something, I'd argue that there is at least one more where it has gained. 

The point is you can only act on what is known, and that not acting until after what is unknown becomes known will only leave you perpetually waiting.

From what I saw the new engine would have been released with the 2016 model if so much of the development time and money had not been allocated to the smaller engine. I have a 2016 ND manual and recently drove an 2019 RF auto was not impressed- the dealer had no manuals in stock at the time. Wonder if ND MX-5 global cup cars will have the new engine sometime in the future?

Don't assume that. A lot of the improvements come from simply having another three years to work on the engine. That's how it works in the automotive world - the longer an engine is in production, the better the mapping gets. I was talking to some GM powertrain engineers last week (they had a couple of disguised prototypes hiding in our shop, which is cool) and that's exactly the way they see it. The big improvements in throttle response and driveability come from that extra time.

Keith Tanner said:

I'm sure if it's problematic, the aftermarket will be happy to supply single mass flywheels.

To be followed shortly by people complaining that the now-heavier clutch disk means that the synchros don't work as well so the shifting is notchier/balkier, and somewhat later people find that the transmissions are noisier and wear out more quickly because there are more engine harmonics getting transmitted to a trans that isn't beefy enough to deal with them.

DMFs are kind of a pain but they are good for the overall driving experience.  I think of DMFs as harmonic dampers at the other end of the engine, protecting the drivetrain...

I drove a 2019 a little while ago. As before it's an awesome car. The engine was nice. I didn't do a back to back comparison, but it just felt right and pulled all the way to the top. It felt more like a minor imperfection was resolved , rather than a wholesale change. I didn't notice the small suspension tweaks differences vs. a 2016 either, but I did a little less evaluation than I would have liked. I'm 6'5" and while I thought the the telescopic steering was nice, I didn't feel there was a big issue with the simple tilt steering setup in the ND1. Unfortunately it was an auto, so I couldn't evaluate the flywheel change. The wife was aggressively against it, so I won't be getting one. :(